


I need (to take off your clothes)

by creativefiend19



Series: Alter Ego (Another Self) [4]
Category: Call Down The Hawk - Fandom, Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater, The Dreamer Trilogy - Fandom
Genre: Anal Sex, Call Down the Hawk, Call Down the Hawk Spoilers, Canon Compliant, Character Study, College Student Adam Parrish, Established Relationship, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Missing Scene, POV Adam Parrish, Pining, Referenced PTSD, Sexual Content, Stream of Consciousness, so much pining, the dreamer trilogy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-01-31 16:00:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21448855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creativefiend19/pseuds/creativefiend19
Summary: Another Call Down The Hawk missing scene. Some CDTH spoilers!!Adam Parrish thinks many, many thoughts about Ronan Lynch and the concept of home, on his way back to Harvard on his motorbike.AKA What else would Adam do alone with his mind for eight hours other than obsessively over-think?
Relationships: Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Series: Alter Ego (Another Self) [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1541212
Comments: 14
Kudos: 187





	I need (to take off your clothes)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Adam Parrish was unknowable](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21197447) by [creativefiend19](https://archiveofourown.org/users/creativefiend19/pseuds/creativefiend19). 

> Read the tags for TW!

_Fucking bike._   
  


He had just dumped it again, needing to stop so he could take a piss.

  
Adam had spent the past three hours aimed towards Harvard on his Ronan-dreamt motorcycle, thinking about Bryde and the scrying and that unspeakably horrible thing he had seen and the bone deep fear he had felt.  
  
Going over all the permutations and combinations of how things could go down and what they could do and the options they had and what the repercussions would be for each choice.  
  
He was thinking about all this, he knew, so that he would not think about Ronan.  
  
Leaving Ronan.  
  
Missing Ronan.  
  
Missing the Barns.  
  
Missing home.

  
  
Each beat of his heart a lament.  
  
Ronan. Ronan. Ronan. 

_Home. Home. Home._   
  


Which was so supremely ironic, because…for so many years, Adam Parrish’s main aim in life had actually been to _leave_ home.  
  
Escape, flee, never, ever come back home. Vamoose. Skedaddle. Scram. Get the fuck out of Dodge. Yesterday.  
  
First, home had been the trailer. Then it had been his shitty room at St. Agnes. And pretty much that whole time, it had generally been the vicinity of Henrietta, Virginia.  
  
And all he had ever wanted to do was leave.

_Leave, leave, leave_. Like a mantra driving his every action, his every choice. Whipping himself with that word like he was a struggling cart horse, pushing himself to overcome the next obstacle, get though work, get through school, through studying, through bone-tiredness, through beatings, just so he could leave, leave, leave.  
  
But over the past year, he had slowly realised that he had kept saying he wanted to leave home because he'd actually had no home. Had had absolutely no idea what home meant. Or what it could be.  
  
But now he knew.  
  


Now he understood.  
  


Because now he had a home.  
  


And his home was Ronan.  
  


Was _with_ Ronan.

With Ronan at the Barns.

  
After living at the Barns with Ronan for so many months, glorying in the heady delights of first love and the continually new and transcendent joys of lovemaking, the Barns were inextricably linked with everything Ronan in Adam’s mind, with magic and dreams and desire.  
  
That had not changed.

Ronan at the Barns was home.  
  
But it wasn’t actually the Barns that was home, of course.  
  
It was Ronan who was home.  
  


And the Barns was probably no longer the home that it had been, for Ronan at least. Because he was stuck there, caged there, now.

So a place which had once been Ronan’s dream and refuge and comfort and retreat and sanctuary (especially during the time he hadn’t been allowed to live there), had now become Ronan’s prison.  
  


Ronan was under house arrest.  
  
Worse.

Ronan was in solitary confinement.

  
  
Because Adam had left.  
  


Though sometimes, like tonight, Adam came back.

  
  
Yeah, tonight had been totally worth it. It was worth the eight hour trip there, eight hours back, on a bike that bruised him, riding with a sore ass, and running on no sleep.  
  
Because it meant he could be with Ronan.  
  
With Ronan at the Barns.  
  


Home.  
  
  
If he and Ronan had been regular people, they could've just made another home. It needn’t have been in the city, if Ronan hated that, but it would've been something they built together and then picked up and moved around with them. Because, no matter where he was, he needed Ronan with him to feel like he was home.  
  
When he had reached the Barns tonight he'd told Ronan: I need to eat. I need to take off your clothes. I want to see Bryde.  
  
Needs versus wants.

And Adam was intimately familiar with both, could differentiate between the nuances of each.

So he knew.

He'd gone from simply wanting Ronan when they first got together, to now needing Ronan.  
  
He needed Ronan like he needed food.  
  
And he missed Ronan in the way that he would miss food.  
  
Or water or air.  
  


Except he would die without those things.  
  
  
But he wouldn’t die without Ronan.   
  
  
He could live with missing Ronan.

  
And that was actually the worst part.

  
That he_ felt_ like he was dying sometimes, but he actually lived.

  
And functioned. And studied. And did group presentations. And spoke to people. And made friends. Played Repo with The Crying Club.

And it wasn’t just the roll-your-eyes-unless-it-had-actually-happened-to-you cliché that he was missing his it-has-to-be-true-love boyfriend during his freshman year of college. A lot of people did that, and suffered through that. And came out the other side, with or without said boyfriend.  
  
It was actually the death knell ruling that said the only way he could be with his boyfriend, with the love of his life, with Ronan, was if they were both at the Barns.  
  
That was the _only_ way.  
  
And Ronan wasn’t just his boyfriend. Was not just his lover. He was Adam's soul mate. They were two halves of a whole; twin selves. And he and Ronan were also invisibly welded together by an otherworldly magic. They literally _were_ magic. They had walked the line between life and death together, dealing with demons and unmaking and Cabeswater’s vines and resurrecting Gansey. They had dealt with more before they were fully adult than most people would in entire lifetimes, and most of it was mystical. So, they had gone above and beyond just normal high school love or having a regular long-distance relationship.  
  
And they deserved to be together after all that. They deserved to be alive and whole and happy.  
  
If Adam were anyone else, he would've said that it wasn’t fair. But Adam had never really cared about fair. Or rather, he had known all about unfairness, and simply refused to accept it, had defeated it, had triumphed over it, with just the force of his mind and the determination of his character.  
  
But he couldn’t exactly destroy the nightwash with the righteous sword of his high IQ, like they'd done with Greenmantle. It was more like the dream he'd had recently, where he was back at Boyd’s but couldn’t repair a car that he knew how to fix, because all his tools drooped like cooked spaghetti when he picked them up.  
  
And so he continued to hunger for Ronan. For home.  
  
He walked around Harvard with a gaping hole in his heart that no one could see, and that Adam couldn’t properly acknowledge even to himself.  
  
Because that’s how the species called Adam Parrish worked, survived, came out victorious. _Invictus_. Adam knew what needed to be done and did it, and anything that interfered with that, including love, fear, anger or even bruises, got compartmentalised in a little box (okay, maybe a big box) and he just got on with taking care of business. Because if you were Adam Parrish, there was always too much to do, and too little time to do it.  
  
And so he tried so hard not to think about it and go about his work. Not think about Ronan. About home.  
  


And mostly, he succeeded.  
  
  
Because if he allowed himself to feel this, to give into this, the dam would burst.  
  
He would feel all of it, all at once.  
  
He would grieve for not having a home when he was young. Not having parents who loved him. Not being wanted. Being dirt poor. Being always exhausted. Not having Cabeswater. Not having Persephone. Gansey dying. The demon possessing him. Ronan being unmade. Ronan’s mother dead. Adam leaving Ronan. Missing Ronan.  
  
All of it would erupt, out of the volcano that he always kept under tight control. And the water would smash through the wall of the dam he had built up so thick, for so long. And Adam would cease to function.  
  
Mixing your metaphors there, Parrish, he thought with a watery grimace.

That dam was getting pretty close to cracking right now, though. He needed to back off or he’d be crying while riding, which would not be good.  
  
Because if he needed to wipe his eyes, he’d dump the damn bike.  
  
  
  
Again.  
  
  
  
Fucking bike.  
  
  
  
(Though actually…he loved it.  
  
  
It was beautiful.  
  
  
And he would keep riding it always, piece of shit that it was.  
  
  
Because Ronan had dreamt it for him.)  
  
  
  
Ronan.  
  
  
  
Home.  
  
  
To be honest, he was amazed now at how the younger version of himself had managed. Had dealt with so much trauma alone, with no support, without being cared for, or being loved, or having a true home. Without even knowing what a home was, what love was. Where the only positive things he ever heard directed at him were when he answered a question correctly or got a perfect score on a test or got straight As. Which was one of the reasons why he pushed himself so much at school. Because he sure never heard anything good about himself back home. If children needed praise and gentle touches and love, he had definitely been starving.

Adam was pretty proud of himself for actually surviving, now that he thought back on it. Though that survival had been a close thing.  
  
He had thought he couldn’t love. That it wasn’t in his vocabulary.  
  
It was now.  
  
He remembered how he used to think that love was a word in a foreign language. That he didn’t know exactly what it meant. And he was sure he would never actually be able to experience it. That maybe he was too broken and empty.  
  
But then love had happened. He’d figured it out. Well, he _was_ figuring it out.  
  
But if he knew love now, it was because he'd had a lot of help along the way. Loving and being loved.  
  
By Cabeswater. And Gansey. And Noah. And Blue. And Persephone. And himself, more and more.  
  
  
But mostly because of Ronan.  
  
  
  
Ronan.  
  
  
  
Home.  
  
  
  
The thing that had changed him completely though, was discovering that he was also a creature of love (and lust too, but he knew that part better), not only needs and wants.  
  
And as much lust as he felt for Ronan (and really, it seemed never-ending sometimes), it was the love that took him by surprise with its intensity. Both the love he gave and the love he received.  
  
But it was the overwhelming intersection of lust and love that really shook him, that he was defenceless against. With how one led to another, fed into the other, in an endless infinity loop.  
  


*  
  


It was mornings of this: Ronan waking up before the sun to feed the animals and doing it with surprisingly little cursing. Adam groggily stumbling down the stairs hours later, following the tantalising aroma of fresh coffee, to find Ronan standing at the stove. And Adam spending a few moments marvelling at the impossible juxtaposition of a god cooking in the kitchen of their home.  
  
Ronan holy with the halo of the sun streaming in through the windows, making divine-smelling breakfast, while whistling a cheeky Irish jig. Adam's boxers riding low on hips, showing off the hot-as-hell tattooed curve of his back, black tendrils snaking towards his ass. And then the completely uncontrollable bolt of love and longing and hunger flooding through Adam for this amazing man who was, by some miracle, his.

It was like being knocked over by a crashing wave that you didn’t see coming. This was all way too much to feel first thing in the morning before caffeine, if Adam was being completely honest, though he wasn’t really complaining.

So, within five minutes it was his hands gripping Ronan's ass tightly under his boxers as they ground breathlessly against each other, kissing hard and hungry while the forgotten pancakes burned.  
  


It was evenings of this: Ronan waiting for Adam as he returned grease-smudged from his shift at Boyd’s and not even allowing him to walk through the front door before yanking down his coveralls. Kneeling and pulling out Adam’s suddenly interested dick and sucking it with ungodly enthusiasm.  
  
“D'you know how many fucking times I wanted to do this to you, Parrish, when you looked like this, and smelled like this? You drove me out of my goddamn mind for so long, you bastard.”  
  
All said while Ronan was savagely unbuckling Adam's belt and angrily unzipping his jeans and then Adam was turning into a helpless shivering pile of lust and gasps and moans, leaning against the railing of the porch. And then it was Ronan coming untouched in his jeans, because Adam slid a single finger in alongside his cock as he was coming into Ronan's mouth, with another hand pressing hard around Ronan's neck, feeling him swallow. If this echoed the demon possessing Adam's hands, neither of them remembered it anymore.  
  


It was nights of this: Ronan opening him up with his tongue as they knelt on the stairs, too impatient to even reach their upstairs bedroom. Blowing Ronan on the couch. Fucking Ronan in a field, under dreamed lights and stars. Rather ambitious and uncomfortably precarious sex on the roof once (never again). Ronan bending him over the hood of the Hondayota. Ronan riding him in the backseat of the BMW to the beat of his shitty EDM, like Adam had fantasized about many months before. Sex in cars. Or near cars. Or on cars. Or against cars. Many, many, many times involving cars, basically. Because Ronan.   
  


The intersection of love and lust and Ronan never failed to drive him a little insane.  
  


Adam remembered the second round of sex they had just had, towards the end of their squeezed together three hours, when he had fucked Ronan in the bathroom. As Adam had pulled Ronan's ass towards him, as Ronan had crossed his arms against the tiles, as Adam had completely sunk into him, with groans of relief from them both, he had watched the reflection of their joined hips in the mirror. He loved and lusted after the shape of Ronan's beautiful swimmer's body, especially when the arch of it was exaggerated like this. The broad bulk of his back and shoulders, the curves of his traps and lats narrowing to the lean dip of the small of his back, then swelling out into his generous ass and muscled thighs. Pale skin covered in that kinetic tattoo.  
  
Adam buried himself again and again into Ronan's slick heat, with a desperation and hunger that was familiar to both of them now. One of his palms was pressed against the flat muscle of Ronan's lower stomach, loving the feeling of the hard ridges trembling with his every gasp, with Adam's every thrust, while his other hand stroked Ronan's rock-hard, leaking cock.

Ronan's body, and Ronan's response to him, was an ever-renewing source of desire and wonder to Adam.  
  
Back when he had thought he was straight, this would have seemed unbelievable to him. That he would want a man so much, need a man so much, love a man so much, want to build a life with a man so much. Not just any man though. Or any person, even. Just Ronan. Only Ronan.  
  
And now, feeling his own pulse throbbing within Ronan as he emptied himself into him, leaving behind his essence to be absorbed into Ronan's warm and welcoming body, Adam felt that he was finally, finally home. And Adam wanted to live here forever.  
  


But it wasn’t just adrenaline and testosterone fuelled sex. It was also soft and slow and tender. It was Ronan looking into his eyes with holy awe as Adam entered him for the very first time. Adam kissing away a salty tear on his cheekbone afterwards. Ronan knowing every single freckle and mapping the new ones. Adam being intimately acquainted with the waxing and waning of black stubble and every stroke of the Celtic-by-way-of-Giger tattoo. Ronan leaving little dreamed-up presents on his pillow. Waking up in Ronan’s arms, which never got old, because it meant Ronan had returned to bed just to hold Adam and watch him sleep. “Creepy jerk. You’re turning into Edward Cullen.” _I love you._

Adam shivered, and not just because of the cold wind. He could actually still feel the phantom sensations of Ronan moving inside his ass _and_ around his cock at the same time and it was speeding up his heart and breath.

_Damn._

He was getting a boner. 

_*_

He really needed to distract himself.

_Think about non-sexy Lynch-times, Parrish, if you can’t stop thinking about him at all, you sappy loser._

It actually amazed Adam how little he and Ronan took the other for granted.

Maybe because their relationship was still relatively young (tomorrow was actually the anniversary of their first kiss, but they were not the sort of couple who would say that out loud) but they both still hadn't become complacent about the fact that they had each other. It was still too new, too magical, too wondrous.  
  
Ronan was the more disbelieving of the two, surprisingly to Adam, because Ronan had grown up feeling loved and wanted, unlike Adam. But then, he had yearned for Adam for so long, and thought that he would never have him. So every time they were together it still felt like Ronan couldn't believe he was awake.  
  
With Adam, though, it was the feeling that, however little Adam had done to earn it or deserve it, Ronan-fucking-Lynch wanted him and loved _him_, of all people. Ronan, who was so discerning and so judgmental and so difficult, had chosen Adam to see the soft, tender, loving, vulnerable sides to him. And that was what overwhelmed Adam, and filled him with an insatiable hunger.  
  
He still instinctively felt that love was a privilege instead of a birthright, and that Ronan had somehow bestowed that love upon him.

He knew, objectively, that he only felt this way because he had never received love growing up. A small (smaller and smaller each day, thankfully) part of him kept waiting for the spell to break and for Ronan to finally discover how unworthy and undeserving Adam actually was.

He recalled his parents' voices, telling him that he was just a useless drain and a waste of space.

So, even though Adam logically and intellectually knew he was mistaken, and that it all went back to his past abuse and neglect, he found it hard to relax into the feeling of being with Ronan completely.

To enjoy it without waiting for it to be taken away from him.  
  
Adam had seriously considered getting professional help when he had started at Harvard. There was a therapist for scholarship students, to help them deal with stress.

He recognised that all of their group, but especially he and Ronan and maybe Gansey, were dealing with PTSD. With Ronan, the trauma had started the day he had found his dad’s brains smeared across the driveway.

With Adam, it was compounded by abuse. It was exhausting, pulling around this load, this baggage, everywhere. But he wasn’t sure how much a therapist could help him (or help Ronan, if the miracle of Ronan agreeing to go actually happened) if he couldn’t be truly frank about everything.  
  
“Okay, my dad almost killed me. And repeatedly beat me. So, I’m an adult survivor of abuse and lack of parental care. All stuff you’ve heard before, I’m sure. Nothing special. But then there was this...umm...magical forest that I kinda sacrificed myself to and it gave me powers. And it pierced my dad’s hand with a thorn, out of thin air, when he threatened me, and he stopped messing with me after that, actually. That forest is gone now, because we asked it to pour itself into refashioning our friend, to bring him back to life when he died – uh – the second time, because there was this demon, right? So, anyway, long story short, I miss the forest like a limb and don’t feel very special anymore. Especially when compared to my boyfriend, who can …ah…bring things and creatures out of his dreams. I can still scry, though, but my soul detaches from my body to an almost fatal extent unless someone cuts my arm open. That's my situation in a nutshell. Oh, is that a straitjacket?”  
  
So. Yeah. There were problems with getting help in the normal ways.

So living with the PTSD and trying to understand as much as he could about it, with some reading and Psych courses, was all he had managed to do so far. Because he was a lot less unknowable to himself now.

And anyway, they were all still somehow functioning and trying to be happy, despite the mess.

Never mind. Ronan and he would figure this out. They’d figured out much worse.

After they tackled the nightwash and Bryde and the scary entity, they would work on it.

They’d find a way to be together.

Adam would find a way to be with Ronan.

Find a way to be home. 

_Ronan._

_Home. _

Okay, said Adam sternly to himself, you’ve already thought about all of this. You’re just spiralling. Snap out of it.

He had another three hours to go. Maybe it was time to listen to his Sociology notes again.

Even if the gasps and moans and whispered _Ronan-_s on it would give him another hard-on and have him thinking about them all over again. But he would be prepared for that.

Would be able to control his thoughts. Would _not _think about Ronan.

It was absolutely possible for him to go a few hours without thinking about Ronan.

He was Adam Parrish, after all.

Adam shifted uncomfortably on the seat.

Okay, time to stop the bike and put in his earphone.

_Don’t dump the bike, don’t dump the bike. _

And so, of course…

He dumped the bike.

Again.

_Fucking bike._

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed your time in Adam's head!
> 
> A word, a line, Anon, non-English - any type of comment or [Tumblr](https://creativefiend19.tumblr.com/) Ask is welcome. So is kudos!


End file.
